In 1900, hundreds of astronomers and newspaper reporters from around the world descended on Wadesboro to view and report on a total solar eclipse that occurred on May 28 at 1:54 PM. The goal was the rare opportunity to study the corona around the sun at total eclipse. Preeminent scientists came from the University of North Carolina, University of Chicago-Yerkes Observatory, Princeton, Yale, the Smithsonian, and the British Astronomical Association. Reporters from the Charlotte Observer and Charlotte News, the New York Sun, the New York World and New York Journal, the Chicago Times-Herald, the Chicago Tribune, the Philadelphia Press, the London Times, and the local Anson Independent and the Messenger and Intelligencer covered the event. Lasting precisely 2 minutes and 10 seconds, it followed years of planning, months of preparation, days of anticipation and hours of waiting, and tens of thousands of pictures and measurements taken that day would be studied for years to come.